Wondering if anyone here trains off the rock, with weights or whatnot.... To be honest I used to be a Crossfit Junkie, but being a college student, I cant afford that anymore (on top of a climbing gym membership) plus since im climbing more, the two conflicted and I would go to either totally burnt.

Not being as active as i used to be (Crossfit) im kinda in a limbo and am getting bummed seeing...er not seeing the definition i used to have....Yes being a Binge drinker quite reqularly doesnt help...but hey...im thinking the two can go together .....looks like i gotta get strict on my diet again...

I recommend keeping parts of your Crossfit workout in place and just fine tune it to be climbing specific. Crossfit is great for total-body, non-sport specific strength, but all that generalized muscle can work against your power/weight ratio when climbing. I like to do breathing ladders with kettlebells (or dumbbells), a few of the compound lifts such as rowing and deadlifts, and lots of bodyweight HIIT workouts. All of these can be looked up online for further information. I think the important thing is to keep climbing consistently and train off the rock to keep your body balanced and injury-free.

Wondering if anyone here trains off the rock, with weights or whatnot.... To be honest I used to be a Crossfit Junkie, but being a college student, I cant afford that anymore (on top of a climbing gym membership) plus since im climbing more, the two conflicted and I would go to either totally burnt.

Not being as active as i used to be (Crossfit) im kinda in a limbo and am getting bummed seeing...er not seeing the definition i used to have....Yes being a Binge drinker quite reqularly doesnt help...but hey...im thinking the two can go together .....looks like i gotta get strict on my diet again...

You can have alot of definition without being bulky and look great by cutting the fat, clearly, it helps it with climbing as well.

I work-out on parallettes, perfect push-ups, and a pull-up bar. My routine consists of strength building exercises that target the core and connective areas.

With parallettes, I like to do pikes/v-sits and transition to a push-up straddle or plank just like a gymnast on rings. I focus on quality. This exercise has easy and hard variations and targets several muscle groups including the core. You can easily build your own parallettes fast and cheap.

With perfect pushups, I like to perform push-up planks. This also targets several muscle groups including the core. There are easy and hard variations for this.

With the pull-up bar, I work front levers and curl-ups with my legs extended as much as possible. Again, there are variations.

My whole routine builds important muscle areas and more importantly targets the core.

I don't gain any weight from my routine. I focus on improving muscle recruitment.

Also, I take yoga class 3-4 times a week for strength and flexibility.

I weight train with dumb bells but I go for more reps, maxing out at 15-20 reps, so I don't build muscle mass. Mostly I work on balancing out the opposition muscles but I'm also working on pushing through muscle fatigue. I never work legs except going for a hike.

Not sure why you are giving up so quickly on Crossfit. I was able to set up a home gym for a few hundred dollars, and I know I could have done it for less. I know more than a few combat gyms are out there and you can't tell me that you have it harder than a soldier in a combat zone.

You won't build muscle mass if you aren't eating to build muscle mass.

Has anyone here actually gotten strong, in a general weight training sense, before coming to the conclusion that weight training isn't helpful for climbers? Anyone here military press their bodyweight? Anyone deadlift three times their bodyweight?

It is possible to get extremely strong without adding much mass at all.

Look at this guy deadlifting 500 at a bodyweight of 123:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPkFUTa0R9M

It's hard for me to believe that a person who can manipulate 500 pounds, hold it in his hands, wouldn't have an easier time manipulating his own slight bodyweight than a person who is only capable of deadlifting 135 pounds.

Take note of how little bulk there is on him. That's from years and years of weight training with heavy weights.

That is weight training. Going to the gym and following some Men's Health routine, or some outdated bodybuilder routine meant for someone at the top levels of competitive bodybuilding who's on all kinds of drugs, for a couple of weeks is not weight training.

I think the standard response to your point is that if dudebro spent all that time training for climbing instead of training for deadlifting he would be an excellent climber (instead of an excellent deadlifter).

The problem I see with that response is that "all that time" isn't really that much time at all. Rippetoe's Starting Strength is a pretty good general strength training program for the novice trainee and it takes about 1 hour, three days a week. Pavel's Power to the People is another good one and takes 20 minutes, five times a week. That little time isn't really cutting into climbing time all that much, if at all.

The video I posted was just to show that being strong doesn't necessitate being massive. I'm not saying a person needs to deadlift 4x bodyweight before it benefits climbing.

Athletes in other sports that require a high degree of skill still manage to train with weights.

The problem I see with that response is that "all that time" isn't really that much time at all. Rippetoe's Starting Strength is a pretty good general strength training program for the novice trainee and it takes about 1 hour, three days a week. Pavel's Power to the People is another good one and takes 20 minutes, five times a week. That little time isn't really cutting into climbing time all that much, if at all.

The video I posted was just to show that being strong doesn't necessitate being massive. I'm not saying a person needs to deadlift 4x bodyweight before it benefits climbing.

Athletes in other sports that require a high degree of skill still manage to train with weights.

Man, I used to love that dude 10+ years ago. Granted, I could never do any of his exercises. Whatever.

Personally I find it is very important to train outside of climbing, mostly for injury prevention though. I think people could definitely benefit from training out more outside of climbing so long as it isn't cutting into their climbing training.

Personally I find it is very important to train outside of climbing, mostly for injury prevention though. I think people could definitely benefit from training out more outside of climbing so long as it isn't cutting into their climbing training.

Yeah, now that I work [at a climbing gym], I've no time to train outside of climbing. Worse yet, even though I work at a climbing gym, I've less time to climb! Yes, I admit. I totally fell for the pitch: "Brah, one of the perks of working at a bitchin' 28' climbing gym is that you can, like, sooooo totally climb when it's not busy... brah!"

I weight train with dumb bells but I go for more reps, maxing out at 15-20 reps, so I don't build muscle mass.

This is kind of funny to me (maybe not to you), but you are actually falling right into the range of hypertrophy training, aka mass-building.

You might try lifting much heavier and with much lower reps (less than 10)

This is interesting to me because I thought that the hyertrophy range was more in the 7-12 rep range from everything I've. I've currently been doing a mix of high weight/low reps (like 5-6 reps) and lower weight/high reps (12+ reps) and generally avoid this middle range.

What kind of reps should I be looking at? (not that I'm the sort of person to bulk up regardless, but I would like to do the most effective training in terms of strength/endurance gains).

Not saying you're right or wrong...I have no idea..but if this is completely true, then why do bodybuilders have some of the lowest body fat % I have ever seen? I worked for a short time in a physiology lab that tested (we did fat % with a tank and did a lot of VO2 testing) athletes from several sports, including some elite level cyclists and runners. We tested a few bodybuilders and they had the lowest %'s of any of them.